Chatter

Ad-diction
There's no end to the rumors of widespread drug abuse among show business types in L.A., and an awful lot of people must believe them. Take the folks who run the Beverly Glen Hospital, a small private institution in L.A. that has been specializing in treating such problems since last spring. Where has the hospital chosen to advertise its services? Where else but in the showbiz sheets Variety and Billboard.

Animal Attraction
As part of an ongoing program at the Los Angeles Zoo, the cast of Three's Company has "adopted" a baboon and named him Tee Cee. (It costs $750 to adopt a baboon, while the zoo asks $60,000 for a rare white tiger.) The Three's Company folks got the idea while filming the show's new title sequence at the zoo, but other celebs already knew about the program. Jimmy Stewart has been adopting animals for years; he now lists a king snake, a Blomberg's toad, an orangutan, a big-eared fox and a jaguar among his charges. And Betty White's fan club has adopted a chimpanzee and a Patagonian cavy (a long-legged member of the guinea pig family) for her.

Kiss and Tell
What's it like to kiss heartthrob Rick Springfield? "Not comfortable," according to Jackie Zeman, who played Springfield's onetime General Hospital girlfriend Bobbie Spencer. "In the kissing scenes," Zeman explains, "the camera is so tight, you can't move two inches or you're off the screen, so you hold still, and you've got a cramp in your leg, and you still can't move. And you can't move your head back too far or they'll be shooting up your nose." Sighs Zeman, "It's very technical."

Man of the Hour
Visiting New York recently with his girlfriend, former hairdresser Cindy Clerico, Michael Landon happened past the Palace Theatre just as the musical Woman of the Year was ending. Within seconds Landon, 47, was surrounded by a throng of theatergoers shouting "There's Michael What's-his-name" and demanding autographs and kisses. In an astonishing display of patience, he cheerfully signed close to 100 Playbills from the show before deciding he had had enough. As he tried to leave, Landon joked to one female admirer who was pinned against him by the crush of bodies, "I don't know how you can take this."

Literary Circle
In a letter not at all out of place in the highbrow London Times Literary Supplement, reader Sheldon Goldfarb notes that Clayhanger, a 1910 novel by Edwardian author Arnold Bennett, contains characters named Nixon, Ford and Carter. Ford and Carter are partners in a manufacturing concern, and Nixon is the name of the Clay-hangers' housekeeper. "I do not remember there being a Reagan," Goldfarb continues, "but there is a character named Udall, and perhaps this bodes well for the Congressman from Arizona."

Furthermore

•Millionaire oilman (and 20th Century-Fox owner) Marvin Davis was issued a traffic ticket for running a red light and causing a small fender bender in Englewood, Colo. But an arrangement worked out between Davis' lawyer and city prosecutor Charles Grim allowed Marvin to plead guilty to the relatively minor offense of operating an unsafe vehicle and get off with just a $48 fine. Mind you, there was nothing unsafe about Davis' car, a $117,0001981 Rolls-Royce.

•Arthur Gelb, the New York Times' deputy managing editor, is careful never to overshadow his boss, executive editor A.M. Rosenthal. Indeed, Gelb once bragged, "I've never had my name in PEOPLE magazine." Well, that's one quote that's no longer fit to print.